WRPS HQ project (200 Frederick St, Kitchener)

[mastermind]

It's a massive waste of money if you ask me. The police service ALREADY commands the largest part of the budget so I think we could have asked them to live with a few million for interior renovations and mostly left a quality, hardy brutalist building intact

I agree with this so much.  I find it really disheartening that this sort of thing happens.  Such an absolute waste.

[tomh009]

The exterior looks largely finished. It's an interesting tile they used for the non-brutalist portions, appears not to be completely flat (see the effect on the Frederick St side). ac3r, do you know what kind of tiles these are?

   

[panamaniac]

The exterior looks largely finished. It's an interesting tile they used for the non-brutalist portions, appears not to be completely flat (see the effect on the Frederick St side). ac3r, do you know what kind of tiles these are?

Is it tile, or metal?  Not pretty.

[tomh009]

The exterior looks largely finished. It's an interesting tile they used for the non-brutalist portions, appears not to be completely flat (see the effect on the Frederick St side). ac3r, do you know what kind of tiles these are?

Is it tile, or metal?  Not pretty.

I suspect it's a metal tile, but can't get close enough to the building to inspect!

[mastermind]

Based on how blinded I was while driving by, I'm going to say it's metal.

[tomh009]

It looks like they will be ready for occupancy sooner rather than later.

   

[panamaniac]

Has there been any word of what's to happen with the old police building?

[ac3r]

That's a pretty ugly façade. The silver metal should have been COR-TEN steel as it matches with concrete (which I would have had power washed thoroughly, if it was not already) quite beautifully. They could have also made it seem much warmer by using some sort of design - slits, holes, an image cutout (something symbolic to WRPS for example) or whatever else - with white lights behind it which could offer a really nice appearance in the dark. It would have looked especially great as it is situated next to Centre in the Square. The building looks super awkward with the particular choice in material they went with. Doesn't match the original concrete at all.

[tomh009]

That's a pretty ugly façade. The silver metal should have been COR-TEN steel as it matches with concrete (which I would have had power washed thoroughly, if it was not already) quite beautifully. They could have also made it seem much warmer by using some sort of design - slits, holes, an image cutout (something symbolic to WRPS for example) or whatever else - with white lights behind it which could offer a really nice appearance in the dark. It would have looked especially great as it is situated next to Centre in the Square. The building looks super awkward with the particular choice in material they went with. Doesn't match the original concrete at all.

Yes, COR-TEN would have been nice indeed, but I suspect WRPS is too conservative for that! I'm at least happy that the old courthouse has been repurposed--and that the current WRPS space can be freed up for something else.

[timc]

I'm no expert, but I love brutalist design. I agree that the cladding looks awful, even worse up close.

[ac3r]

I haven't seen this in person yet but it does sort of look like some of the overhang near the doors is COR-TEN as it has that colour, but I suspect it's just another painted metal? Maybe I'll wander past this week.

And heck because it's near the Centre in the Square and in a fairly artistic district of the city (there's a few other things around there), the region could have commissioned some matching artwork made of COR-TEN to attach to the original concrete. Not that I think a pseudo-militarized arm of municipal government pairs well with art, the building could have at least looked nice to the eyes heh.

[Lens]

Excellent use of 40+ million dollars...

[KevinL]

Has there been any word of what's to happen with the old police building?

Just 'additional Regional offices', I think.

[ac3r]

Oh yeah, pretty sure it's more RoW offices. It'd be a bit hard to turn the existing space into anything else (i.e. residential)...it's a police station after all. Not sure what you'd do with all the weird rooms, holding rooms, jail cells and so on. It'd be costly to renovate that. If they just pass it to RoW then they can more easily adapt it to offices/storage.

[nms]

Given its location, the property would definitely stay municipally owned and controlled (either Kitchener or the Region) for a long time to come.  Here are a couple of options:
- expanding regional staff space, or consolidating staff from other sites
- expanding the KPL Central Branch footprint (but not for another 20+ years)
- some sort of artist shared space similar to 44 Gaukel that could feed into the Registry Theatre
- Passport Canada office or other federal departments

On a side note, Google Maps pings "Waterloo Corporation Archives" at 200 Frederick St.  I don't know if that is simply a mislabeling, or if the the Waterloo Region archives (from various municipal bodies, 1829 to present) are truly stored in 200 Frederick St.